18 May 2026
https://thecradle.co/articles/hezbollahs-old-weapons-new-war-israel-confronts-its-past-in-south-lebanon

Lede: Drones, anti-tank fire, explosive devices, ambushes, demolitions, and
casualty figures all point to the same conclusion - Israel's northern front was
never the solved problem its commanders claimed.

At the strategic level, Israel's own narrative already points to the main
failures. It misread Hezbollah's intentions and capabilities, entered the
confrontation with weak planning and uneven readiness, then watched the army and
government trade blame over the result.

Hebrew coverage still tried to frame the campaign through battlefield gains,
soldiers' testimonies, and hard-earned experience from two years of war. But the
leaks told a rougher story. Too many "difficult security incidents" kept
surfacing, too many official claims were later revised, and too many familiar
weapons were returning in forms the army had failed to absorb. Military
censorship could contain the headlines, but not the picture taking shape behind
them.

Drones return as an old weapon made new
The rescue incident near Taybeh on 26 April showed how far Hezbollah's drone war
had moved beyond nuisance. Close-range footage forced the Israeli public to see
what soldiers were facing - small, fast, hard-to-detect FPV drones, many guided
through fiber-optic cable and therefore immune to ordinary electronic jamming.

AP described the drones as "small, hard to track and lethal," while former
Israeli air defense commander Ran Kochav said they fly "very low, very fast,"
making them difficult to track even after detection. Reuters later reported that
fiber-optic FPVs could evade Israel's high-tech jamming and target Israeli
troops in southern Lebanon during the ceasefire that began on 16 April.

Israeli Army Radio, according to the original account, admitted that the threat
had been known since the Ukraine war, and that internal warnings had produced
little action. The delayed response followed a familiar script. First came the
casualties, then the committees, new sights, anti-drone nets, radar deployments
inside Lebanon, shorter helicopter landing windows, and promises of
technological fixes.

The problem was not the drone alone, but how Hezbollah used it - for
surveillance, impact, filmed proof, follow-on coordinates, and pressure on
rescue teams. The Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli army was seeking
12,000 locally made FPV assault drones, with each unit expected to cost NIS
20,000 (around $6,888) to 25,000 (around $8,600) - far above the cheaper drones
ordered in an earlier tender, and many times the cost of Hezbollah's locally
assembled models, which were estimated at only a few hundred dollars.

The Israeli response confirmed the scale of the problem. Hezbollah had taken a
weapon made famous in Ukraine, stripped it to its essentials, and turned it
against an army built around expensive detection, air dominance, and
technological superiority.

IEDs and anti-armor: The old nightmares return
The return of explosive devices carried its own memory. Before the 2000 Israeli
withdrawal from south Lebanon, IEDs were among the occupation army's most feared
threats. In 2026, the same weapon reappeared inside a more complex battlefield
of drones, ambushes, and damaged vehicles left behind under fire.

Avi Ashkenazi wrote in Maariv that the most worrying weapon in Hezbollah's
arsenal was the explosive device. Lebanon gives it natural advantages: difficult
topography, dense vegetation, fog, and long periods of poor visibility. Some
devices targeted armor, others personnel, while detection before detonation
remained limited in Lebanese terrain.

Anti-tank fire produced the same complaint. Walla reported that Israeli company
commanders in south Lebanon were facing an "unimaginable" scale of anti-tank
launches from combat positions, homes, and wooded areas. The missiles were fired
from more than 4 kilometers away, sometimes from behind ridges and outside
direct line of sight.

The report named older Soviet-era systems such as the 9K111 Fagot, known by NATO
as the AT-4 Spigot, and Konkurs, alongside Kornet, Toophan, and Almas. Israeli
officers described Almas as a pillar of Hezbollah's arsenal, with ranges
assessed from four to more than 10 kilometers, including versions launched from
drones. The point was not only lethality, but exposure. The longer the range,
the harder it became to locate the firing cell in time.

The same logic shaped the Israeli focus on the anti-tank line. Every advance
demanded more air and artillery fire simply to disrupt launch teams. Yet the old
lesson returned again. No protection system works perfectly, and south Lebanon
punishes any army that treats armor as immunity.

Israel tried to answer with new tools, including the Roem self-propelled gun, an
automated artillery system with a smaller crew, faster firing rate, and
shoot-and-scoot capability. But the upgrade also revealed the pressure Hezbollah
was placing on artillery sites and exposed positions.

Cont'd ...